Chelsea Flower Show celebrates ‘unsung hero' of the plant world
It usually spends its life underwater, overlooked and under threat, but for the first time, seagrass will be taking centre stage at the Chelsea Flower Show.
The Seawilding Garden will feature a saltwater pool of seagrass, some of which has been harvested from seed in a laboratory in Devon. The rest has been relocated from a threatened seagrass meadow near the ferry crossing between Mull and Iona in the Inner Hebrides.
It will be the first time the humble seagrass, also known as common eelgrass, has been exhibited alongside the fancier, flashier plants at the show in west London. When the show is over, the seagrass will be replanted on the ocean floor, as part of a wider effort to restore the depleted habitat of
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
9 hours ago
- The Independent
The big reason why we love Dippy the Dinosaur so much
Dippy – a complete cast of a diplodocus skeleton – is Britain's most famous dinosaur. It has resided at the Natural History Museum in London since 1905 and is now on show in Coventry where it is 'dinosaur-in-residence' at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum. Dippy, the star attraction in the huge entrance hall of the Natural History Museum from 1979 to 2018, i s now on tour around the UK, with Coventry as its latest stop. It had previously been shown in Dorchester, Birmingham, Belfast, Glasgow, Newcastle, Cardiff, Rochdale, Norwich and London. So what is it that makes Dippy so popular? I got a sense of the dino's appeal in August 2021 when I gave a lecture under the Dippy skeleton in Norwich Cathedral. The lecture was about dinosaur feathers and colours. It highlighted new research that identified traces of pigment in the fossilised feathers of birds and dinosaurs. I wanted to highlight the enormous advances in the ways we can study dinosaurs that had taken place in just a century. Before arriving, I thought that Dippy would fill the cathedral – after all the skeleton is 26 metres long and it had filled the length of the gallery at the Natural History Museum. However, Dippy was dwarfed by the gothic cathedral's scale. In fact, the building is so large that five Dippys could line up, nose to tail, from the great west door to the high altar at the east end. This sense of awe is one of the key reasons to study palaeontology – to understand how such extraordinary animals ever existed. I asked the Norwich cathedral canon why they had agreed to host the dinosaur, and he gave three answers. First, the dinosaur would attract lots of visitors. Second, Dippy is from the Jurassic period, as are the rocks used to construct the cathedral. Finally, for visitors it shared with the cathedral a sense of awe because of its huge size. Far from being diminished by its temporary home, visitors still walked around and under Dippy sensing its grandeur. Dippy arrived in London in 1905 as part of a campaign for public education by the Scottish-American millionaire Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919). At the time, there was a debate in academic circles about the function of museums and how far professionals should go in seeking to educate the public. There was considerable reticence about going too far. Many professors felt that showing dinosaurs to the public would be unprofessional in instances where they moved from description of facts into the realm of speculation. They also did not want to risk ridicule by conveying unsupported information about the appearance and lifestyle of the great beasts. Finally, many professors simply did not see such populism as any part of their jobs. But, at that time, the American Museum of Natural History was well established in New York and its new president, Henry Fairfield Osborn (1857-1935) was distinctly a populist. He sponsored the palaeo artist Charles Knight (1874-1953), whose vivid colour paintings of dinosaurs were the glory of the museum and influential worldwide. Osborn was as hated by palaeontology professors as he was feted by the public. Carnegie pumped his steel dollars into many philanthropic works in his native Scotland and all over America, including the Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. When he heard that a new and complete skeleton of a diplodocus had been dug up in Wyoming, he bought it and brought it to his new museum. It was named as a new species, Diplodocus carnegiei. On a visit to Carnegie's Scottish residence, Skibo Castle, King Edward VII saw a sketch of the bones and Carnegie agreed to donate a complete cast of the skeleton to Britain's Natural History Museum. The skeleton was copied by first making rubber moulds of each bone in several parts, then filling the moulds with plaster to make casts and colouring the bones to make them look real. The 292 pieces were shipped to London in 36 crates and opened to the public in May 1905. Carnegie's original Dippy skeleton only went on show in Pittsburgh in 1907, after the new museum building had been constructed. Carnegie had got the royal bug and donated further complete Dippy casts to the great natural history museums in Berlin, Paris, Vienna, Bologna, St Petersburg, Madrid, Munich, Mexico City and La Plata in Argentina. Each of these nations, except France, had a king or tsar at the time. The skeletons went on show in all these locations, except Munich, and Dippy has been seen by many millions of people in the past 120 years. Dippy's appeal Dippy's appeal is manifold. It's huge – we like our dinosaurs big. It has been seen up close by more people around the world than any other dinosaur. It also opens the world of science to many people. Evolution, deep time, climate change, origins, extinction and biodiversity are all big themes that link biology, geology, physics, chemistry and mathematics. Also, since 1905, palaeontology has moved from being a largely speculative subject to the realms of testable science. Calculations of jaw functions and limb movements of dinosaurs can be tested and challenged. Hypotheses about physiology, reproduction, growth and colour can be based on evidence from microscopic study of bones and exceptionally preserved tissues, and these analyses can be repeated and refuted. Dippy has witnessed over a century of rapid change and its appeal is sure to continue for the next.
Reuters
18 hours ago
- Reuters
'The Institute': Stephen King's new TV thriller premieres in London
LONDON, June 5 - American writer Stephen King and director Jack Bender have joined forces again for a new TV thriller "The Institute", which premiered in London on Thursday. Based on King's best-selling 2019 novel by the same name, Bender said after working together on shows such as crime drama "Mr Mercedes" and sci-fi show "Under the Dome" they were keen to find a new project. "This show is about the power of youth coming together to rectify the world that all of us adults have screwed up a little bit," Bender said. As well as directing, Bender, along with King has an executive producer credit on the show, as does Ben Cavell, who also wrote the small screen adaptation. Joe Freeman, in his first major role, stars as Luke Ellis, a teenager with unusual abilities, who is kidnapped and taken to "The Institution," a facility full of trapped kids with psychological powers. "He's never acted and he's remarkable ….The minute I saw him on tape, it was: 'Oh, my God, this kid is it. He's so real,'" Bender said of 19-year-old Freeman, the son of actor Martin Freeman. Asked if his dad, known for "The Hobbit" franchise and "Sherlock" had given him any advice, Joe Freeman said it was not to take anything for granted, as "the job (of an actor) is 99% rejection." Freeman stars alongside Emmy award winner Mary-Louise Parker as Ms Sigsby, who runs the institution and Ben Barnes, who plays an ex-cop whose life becomes intertwined with the facility. "It's a sort of… a slow simmering sort of horrifying thriller rather than a horror," Barnes said. While the first series covers the book, there are plans to continue. "We certainly intend to tell much more story….if there's an appetite for it, we will absolutely continue this story because these characters, these actors, this crew... it all feels too good to leave behind," Cavell said.
Telegraph
21 hours ago
- Telegraph
King asked to intervene in plans to build Britain's biggest solar farm
The King has been asked to intervene to halt plans to build Britain's biggest solar farm. A large portion of the project will be built on the 12,000-acre Blenheim Estate, where Winston Churchill was born. The £800 million Botley West project is set to cover almost 3,500 acres of land across Botley, Woodstock and Kidlington in Oxfordshire. The Planning Inspectorate is examining the scheme and will make a recommendation to Ed Miliband, the Energy and Net Zero Secretary, within six months. Locals have been campaigning against the plans but now one of them, Tim Summer, has written a letter claiming an act from the early 18th century means the monarch should step in. Mr Summer's arguments are based around the 1705 Queen Anne Act of Parliament, which gave the Blenheim Estate to John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough. Mr Sumner claims the Blenheim Estate does not officially own the land and that the 1705 Act states it should not be used for any purposes other than the duke's. As such, Mr Sumner maintains that 'since the Crown leases land to the duke, the Crown must be consulted'. He added: 'Leasing and giving ownership of Blenheim land to a third party who will directly enjoy financial benefits is against the 1705 Queen Anne Act.' Mr Sumner added: 'I therefore humbly ask that the Crown steps in to enforce its ownership of the Blenheim Estate as Queen Anne intended and refuses the Blenheim Estate land to be handed over to any third party.' The King, a lifelong environmental campaigner, has called for a rapid increase in renewable energy and is striving to make the Royal Household net zero by 2030. He has installed solar panels at Windsor Castle and a solar farm on a former horse grazing paddock at Sandringham. His Majesty is yet to respond to the Botley West row but the arguments concerning the Crown were presented at a recent hearing in Oxford. The Planning Inspectorate has asked for further clarification from Blenheim. A spokesman for the estate said: 'We are aware of the comments made during the public examination which are not correct in relation to this project.' Mark Owen-Lloyd, director of Photovolt, the company behind the project, said: 'Should the project be granted consent, Photovolt will become one of many tenants of the Blenheim Estate, who have leased their land for centuries. 'The restrictions apply only to the World Heritage Site that is Blenheim Palace, which will of course have no solar panels installed on it.' The Duke of Marlborough, a Reform UK backer, is said to be opposed to the project. The 12th Duke, known as Jamie Blandford, is a member of Reform, which believes that 'productive land must be farmed, not be used for solar farms or rewilding'. However, the Duke's chequered past involving drug addiction and multiple spells in prison saw him lose control of the family seat in 1994. His legal control of the Blenheim Estate is significantly limited because he is not a trustee of the Blenheim Palace Heritage Foundation, which operates the World Heritage site. The estate itself supports the potentially lucrative project, from which it is predicted to earn about £1,000 an acre for each of the 40 years that Photovolt leases the land. Mr Sumner, who went to Parliament to see some of these acts first-hand, said he was motivated to do the research because of his interest in his local area's past and the solar farm. Professor Alex Rogers, chairman of Stop Botley West, said this letter has questioned 'the idea that the developer can do whatever they want with the land'. Earlier in 2025, Mr Miliband was accused of breaking the ministerial code after his department approved an application for a solar farm owned by the millionaire Labour donor Dale Vince. The Department for Energy, Security and Net Zero signed off on Heckington Fen Solar Park, a 524-hectare solar farm in Lincolnshire which is owned by Ecotricity, Mr Vince's green energy company. Ecotricity has donated £5.4 million to Labour since 2021, making Mr Vince one of the party's most prominent business backers. The energy department said it was Lord Hunt, a minister, and not Mr Miliband who was responsible for signing off on the solar farm. A spokesman added: 'No rules have been broken. Political donations have no influence over how planning applications are considered.' Mr Vince also rejected suggestions the approval was politically motivated and said the site would create hundreds of jobs.
